Honestly? After I found out that most of my recycling was ending up in landfills anyway, I stopped feeling guilty about throwing stuff in the trash. If 90% of ocean plastic comes from like ten companies, me washing out yogurt containers feels like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

People love using corporate pollution as an excuse to do nothing, and it drives me crazy. Sure, corporations need regulation - desperately - but that doesn't mean individual choices don't matter. Every bit less waste in the system is still less waste, and collective consumer pressure actually does change corporate behavior over time.

Look, I get the frustration, but this logic is kind of a trap. Yeah, corporations are massive polluters - that's absolutely true - but individual recycling and corporate accountability aren't mutually exclusive problems we have to choose between. We can push for both stricter regulations AND change our personal habits; they're not competing for the same resources.

Here's the thing though: recycling *alone* is obviously insufficient, but that doesn't make it pointless. It's like saying flossing is pointless because you can still get cavities from a bad diet - they're both part of a system. We need systemic corporate change AND individual responsibility, not one instead of the other.